The present invention relates generally to the electrical, electronic and computer arts, and, more particularly, to methods, apparatus and systems for event prediction and management.
Under certain conditions, such as, for example, during mild weather, human activity is often a driven factor in the cause of power outages. For example, various excavation activities associated with the construction and maintenance of underground infrastructure (e.g., water pipes, telecommunication cables, road work, etc.) can damage underground power lines, either causing an immediate outage or contributing to a subsequent outage (e.g., an outage occurring days, weeks or months after a damage incident). Each year this type of human error can create safety issues and incur significant financial loss.
Conventional approaches to mitigating power outages generally involve the manual and subjective task of ranking individuals based on a frequency of causing power outages to thereby predict the risk of an outage. This method, however, ignores the impact of other contributing factors associated with human activity, such as, but not limited to, activity type, activity location, etc. Another challenge in mitigating outages is the management of limited resources, such as, for example, crew and budget allocation, under various uncertainties to reduce the risk of outages.